Lessons from New York City’s Long Campaign for Congestion Pricing

Equitable road pricing is one of the most important strategies to reduce excess driving, support public transit, and reduce climate pollution. Transform co-leads a working group of California advocates that support equitable pricing, and in February, Betsy Plum from the New York Riders Alliance spoke with California advocates about her group’s yearslong campaign for congestion pricing. 

Plum’s experience in developing effective messaging for a new charge on people driving in Manhattan is an inspiring example of putting the benefits of a complex policy into terms everyone can understand.

New York City’s congestion pricing program

Drivers who enter Manhattan below 60th Street are now charged a daily fee of $9. The program, which started on January 5, 2025, had immediate benefits. Those who drive into the city have found their commute times significantly reduced as traffic has dropped. At the same time, business is up, with Broadway ticket sales booming and retail ticking up. The program is popular with New Yorkers, even as President Donald Trump seeks to rescind federal approval given under the Biden administration.

Plum reported that, in its first six weeks, 1 million fewer vehicles had entered the congestion relief zone. Bus service was faster and more reliable, especially to the farther reaches of the city. Express bus ridership had grown on the weekends, and subway ridership was up every day. Polling showed that two-thirds of people who drive cars supported the toll, a strong early success.

Building an equitable tolling program

One of Riders Alliance’s foundation principles was to design an equitable program. It should support low-income drivers, especially those who live in the Congestion Relief Zone. Revenue should fund programs to improve health in impacted communities by studying air quality, expanding asthma treatment centers, adding vegetation barriers next to highways, and installing air filtration systems in schools near highways in New York and New Jersey.

There are also discount programs for those who still need to drive. Eligible low-income New Yorkers can apply for a 50% discount, effective after the first 10 tolled trips in any calendar month, and people with disabilities can apply for an Individual Disability Exemption Plan, which will exempt them from paying the toll. Just as importantly, in anticipation of congestion pricing, the City initiated “Fair Fares NYC,” a program that gives New Yorkers with low incomes a 50% discount on subway and bus fares.

Much of the revenue will go to NYC’s vital transit system, including $15 billion for new transit projects creating faster subways via signal upgrades, new buses and trains to prevent breakdowns and delays, and new subway stations and elevators to increase ADA access. 

The winding road to a critical policy

It took years of organizing by a coalition of groups to achieve all this. Along the way, there were lawsuits, multiple governors, and many different advocacy tactics. 

New York finally passed a law authorizing the City to implement congestion pricing in 2019. It needed federal approval, which wasn’t forthcoming during the first Trump administration, but Biden’s Department of Transportation gave the green light in 2021. 

Work to implement congestion pricing kicked into high gear ahead of a planned launch on June 30, 2024 — until New York Governor Kathy Hochul pulled the plug in early June, putting an indefinite pause on the program. 

That’s when Plum’s organization kicked into high gear. Riders Alliance hired a strategic communications firm and ran ads, a first for the group. They aimed ads at the governor, urging her to reverse her decision. The ads focused on benefits everyone could understand: improved air quality, less gridlock, faster emergency response times.

After the November election, Hochul reversed her decision and the race was on to pass the final hurdles for implementation while the Biden administration was still in charge in Washington. Riders Alliance ran an ad touting the benefits shortly after congestion pricing started.

What California advocates can learn from NYC

New York is unique in its density, but California can build on the knowledge of advocates like Plum in pushing our cities and highways to adopt tolling. Here are some key takeaways from Plum.

• Coalitions move the needle. Working with a diverse set of organizations with different strategies gave power to the movement for congestion pricing. Plum described an inside/outside strategy: Riders Alliance was willing to be more hard-hitting toward elected leaders. Other allies took a gentler approach and had the ear of elected officials. The combination of public pressure plus pragmatic insiders kept the pressure on the governor’s office. Coalitions can be unified without being uniform.
• Organize, organize, organize. Transit riders are the power base: mobilize them and keep up the pressure. Focus on the people who will benefit from tolling to counteract well-funded opposition.
• Show that government can do hard things. It rebuilds trust in democracy when you show that government can provide positive change. Give elected leaders the win; frame the policy as a victory for leadership and vision.

The success of New York’s congestion pricing is making the case for road pricing better than any advocate could. But it took a foundation of committed advocacy to get to implementation. California should be next, and Transform will work to ensure whatever solutions our state adopts include equitable pricing, as we move beyond highways.